And actually that What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue rips-off Up, one of Pixar's best films, is the least of its problems. How amateurishly made it is in all areas is really painful to watch, lack of originality in a film is not always a problem but it depends on how everything else is done. What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue is not just unoriginal but every component making it up screams of a less-than-amateur job. What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue is not quite as bad as Ratatoing and The Little Panda Fighter, that doesn't mean anything though because it is one of Video Brinquedo's(the Asylum of animated movie studios and even worse, The Asylum does have the odd tolerable film whereas Video Brinquedo's entire resume consists of movies that are to be seen once and immediately erased from the memory) worst. The animation is every bit as hideous as those of Ratatoing and The Little Panda Fighter, instead of detail and fluidity every background is static and choppy, the colours manage to be flat and garish and even worse are the robotic and really quite creepy character designs. Nobody is expecting Disney, Pixar or Studio Ghibli quality here, they want to see effort which wasn't seen all that much with What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue. The soundtrack is forgettable at best and flatly recorded and, like with Ratatoing and The Little Panda Fighter, What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue is written terribly. The humour is unfunny and is more juvenile and at times crass rather than smart and witty. The story, if we side-step the unoriginality, has absolutely no heart or charm to it. It is also a very overly predictable story with some of the laziest exposition of possibly any movie, animated or otherwise, and manages also to be too thin for the almost 50 minute length. Even worse it also didn't even know how or when to end. The characters, there are shades of the Up characters in their character designs but very-badly-designed-clones-looking instead are annoying and not likable in the slightest, and you are looking for good voice work, look elsewhere. If you've seen any of Video Brinquedo's any other outings you'll know how poor the vocal talent is, it's of the didn't-even-try quality with dialogue delivery lacking in any kind of expressions and the voices themselves often grate. Overall, if you want to be uplifted see Up itself, because What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue won't give you that feeling, deflation and annoyance will be more like it. 1/10 Bethany Cox
